Love Something, Set It Free
by icanhearthedrums
Summary: After Buquet's murder, Christine is terrified of the dark, and clings to the light that Raoul promised. But when the call of the night grows too strong, Christine finds that Erik's gone. The past of their lives will merge with the present, and an insidious figure from Erik's old life threatens to tear him away from the one he's so painstakingly built up.
1. Chapter 1

If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours. If not, it was never meant to be.

xxxxxxx

"Why have you brought us here? We must return!"

Christine ignored Raoul's attempt at pulling her back to the others, intent on only one thing. Or...in this case...someone _._

 _"Here in this room, he calls me softly. Somewhere inside, hiding. Somehow, I know he's always with me. He, the unseen genius."_

A siren's song, and Christine took full advantage of this innate ability to track the murdering bastard down. He was on the roof, she could sense it. Could always sense him...ever since that dark and stormy night in the chapel as a lonely child.

"Christine!" A strong hand shackled onto her wrist, forced her to stop and face Raoul, a wild look in the man's eyes that spoke of concern, confusion, towards Christine's unusual reason for going to the roof. We'll be safe there, she'd said.

Safe. What a laughable thought, that her angel would ever try to harm her. No, safety wasn't what she'd come up here for.

No...

She came because she knew this was where he'd be. While chaos ensued downstairs, he was untouchable, like smoke, slipping away into the relative sanctuary of the night again.

Then what was she here for? Why did she bring Raoul with her?

The answer was lost to her still, hidden underneath the all-encompassing fear and shock of what just happened, of the anger at knowing the reason why an innocent man had died.

How DARE he!? HOW DARE HE DO SOMETHING SO ATROCIOUS!? SO MONSTROUS!?

Her angel. Her devil. Her guardian. Her tormenter.

She felt Raoul start pulling her back to the stairs in the midst of her revelation. Alarmed at the mere thought of facing all of those people again - the accusation in their eyes, the poisonous words of 'condolences' at being the target of a crazed phantom - had her shrieking, "Don't take me back there! The Phantom of the Opera will kill and kill again!"

"There is no Phantom of the Opera!" Raoul barked, grabbed her by the shoulders as if to shake some sense into her.

She slapped his hands away, "You don't believe me, Raoul. How can you still not, after all you've seen!? After..." She swallowed, felt nausea roiling in her stomach as an image of Buquet's corpse swung like a large pendulum over the stage.

Her angel had done that. Her angel was a murderer, had placed a noose around Joseph Buquet's neck, and sent him flying over the edge.

For the first time, the fact that her angel was a physical being, a real living breathing person that had all the capability to sin and lie and lust and rage and do violence, truly sunk in.

The sickening realization left her stunned, breathless as the weight of this knowledge bore down on her like a five ton anvil. Woke her from the hypnotic daze that had served as a veil over her eyes since she met her Angel of Music. A veil that had not lifted even after _that night_. A surreal night of music, of enchantment, of gentle hands that literally blinded her with a silk scarf, of a liberating glee as she entrusted all of herself to her angel, allowed him to sweep her around and around the endless depths of the darkness she'd been led to.

He was her Angel of Music, had been for so long she could safely say she knew him as well as she knew herself. But that murderer that had killed Buquet on her behalf, the psychotic blackmailer that extorted money with no remorse...he was a complete stranger to her.

"My God, who is this man?" Christine breathed out, perhaps directed towards the God she'd just instinctually called for, because whoever this murderer was, he was certainly no angel. Perhaps an Angel of Death, but not Christine's angel.

"My God, who is this man?!" Raoul's parroted words snapped her from her daze. "This mask of death." And that's when the answer came. This stranger was the Phantom. Her Angel of Music and the Phantom were one and the same. Two sides of the same coin.

She could feel the heat of the Phantom's eyes burning a hole in her back. Of course he was here, where else would he be if not with her.

"I can't escape from him..." Christine whispered, and never has truer words been spoken. "And in this labyrinth, where night is blind, the Phantom of the Opera is here...inside my mind."

"I've told you already, Christine," Raoul grabbed her by the arms again, turned her his way, as dictating as always, even when they'd been children. "there IS NO Phantom of the Opera!"

HIs insistence on denial was grating on her already shot nerves, and all of the pent up frustration and whirlwind of emotions broke through the dam she'd been trying to keep up for so long. "Raoul, I've seen him!"

Seen him for what he truly was. A monster, more devil than man.

"Can I ever forget the sight?"

 _Eyes blazing with fury, his scarred face marred with it, twisting into a horrible visage as he screamed at her._

"So distorted...deformed...it was hardly a face in that darkness."

 _"Sing for me."_

"But his voice filled my spirit with a strange, sweet sound." Her angel. "In that night, there was music in my mind. And through music, my soul began to soar!"

 _"And you'll live, as you've never lived before."_

 _"_ And I heard, as I'd never heard before."

"What you heard, was a dream, and nothing more," Raoul said, with a sympathetic and sad shake of his head.

"Yet, in his eyes..." _This loathsome gargoyle, who burns in Hell._ "all the sadness of the world."

"Those pleading eyes, that both threaten," _But secretly, yearns for heaven. Secretly._ "and adore."

"Christine," Raoul murmured once more, the sympathy from before turning to pity, tipped her over the proverbial edge, and before she could stop them, the tears fell. She buried her face into her hands, wanting the comfort of the darkness to take her again, but it never came; elusive as the Phantom himself.

How could her Angel do this to her!? How could he lie to her all these years, hide behind the facade of this saint and use her in such a way. Betray her, and have the audacity to lay claim over her soul still. She was right. She couldn't escape him. She never will. He was as much bound to her as she had been to his angelic influence.

"No more talk of darkness. Forget those wide eyed fears" Raoul's words were soft, reassuring, an anchor in the maelstrom of her mind. "I'm here, nothing can harm you."

She lifted her gaze up from the darkness to meet the light in Raoul's eyes, understood now why she brought Raoul with her to the roof. Something in her knew of the chain that connected the Phantom to Christine. And that same part of her knew exactly how that chain could be broken.

This was the right thing to do, she thought as she wove her fingers into Raoul's waiting hand, let him pull her up.

"Say you love me." A request, a bold statement to the silence of the night and all those that lurked within it.

"You know I do."

 _Goodbye, angel_ , she sent through the fraying connection that had always allowed her to sense him, and waded into the sturdy strength of Raoul's arms. Felt the metal of Raoul's ring burning the skin of her finger as he slipped it on.

Numb. Erik had never felt such a thing affect him so utterly and completely without the aid of his morphine.

Like the ghost he was, he faded into the infinite depths of the darkness in the night. Barely felt the chill of the air around him because the chill in his heart was so much deeper. "That's all I ask of you." Christine's words were as sharp as a knife's tip, plunging into his breast over and over again with each syllable.

Unable to think clearly over the roar in his ears, Erik's legs and rote memory brought him back into the soothing warmth of his opera house, where he traversed the flies until he could resume his original position from before he'd been so rudely interrupted by that bastard Buquet.

 _"I know now why you're so familiar, freak. You were in Persia! You're that disgusting toy for the crazy bitch, aren't you? Well, guess what, freak? She wants her toy back!"_

From his spot high over the heads of the audience, Erik was given a 180 degree view of the stage and the opera house, could watch unobstructed the impressive sight of thousands of people standing on their feet, paying their respects to the cast as they gave their final bow.

And yet, Erik's elbows planted on the railing as he watched the proceedings from afar - alone, always alone - he was deaf to it all, swarmed by memories of long past, the recollection of all of his deeds, good and bad.

Christine. His crowning achievement. His most disastrous failure.

He'd planted the seeds of his influence before he'd even known he'd done so. And, oblivious, he'd cultivated it, watched it - her - grow from a bud into the flower she was now, under the guise of her angel.

Raoul De Chagny. The sight of him in Erik's box, for once, didn't send him into a blind rage. The ring he'd given Christine, De Chagny had had it on him. Which meant that he'd been expecting to propose at sometime in the future. Perhaps it had always been inevitable that she'd be De Chagny's, and even a man as foolish and soft as this fop, could see it just as much as Erik could.

The Vicomte would be good for Christine. She needed stability in her life, and in Raoul De Chagny, she'll have it. She deserved happiness, and Raoul De Chagny could give her that. Her voice...

As she sailed out to the stage, to the cheers and cries of the adoring crowd, Erik knew that her voice would be treasured from now on.

This was Erik's dream for her. All that he'd wanted for his angel, she now had. He'd provided for Christine as much as she could - physically, metaphorically, spiritually - and like that night all those years ago, when he'd been reborn, baptized in blood, he let her go, assured now of her security.

In the blurred vision of the stage his tear-filled eyes provided, he watched her take a bow, cradling a bouquet of roses to her breast like a babe. Later, he'd berate himself for losing such a sense of his surroundings, allowed his emotions to push his usually hyper-aware notice of everything that went on around him enough for someone to sneak up on him.

The knife that touched itself to the skin of his neck sent him flying back into reality, and he turned just in time to dodge the needle's point glinting in the dim light of the chandelier.

Something overhead caught Christine's eye as she straightened from another bow. She looked up for the briefest of moments, frowned when she saw the two dark figures near the ceiling, legs and arms trapping each other, tangled together as if they were engaged in a dance.

One pushed the other away, the faint outline of two men emerging into a stand slowly. The pair shadows faced off against one another, and as Christine watched, one raised an arm, its outline intersected with the lines holding the chandelier, and then it came down like an axe.

The ropes fell away like wriggling snakes, and as Christine watched, like a member of the audience would watch a play on stage, the other figure lunged forwards for the rope.

Too late, something in Christine's mind whispered to her.

The chandelier tipped forwards, suspended now only by the one remaining rope on its opposite side. That too gave way, unable to hold the weight of the massive light fixture by itself, and as Christine watched with a worryingly detached attention, the two ton mass of metal and fire came crashing down on the heads of the people below.

What became of the two figures, Christine didn't know. One moment, she was standing on the stage, her ears filled with the screams and cries of the survivors, her vision blinded by blood. The next, she was sitting in her dressing room, Raoul shouting her name into her face.

All she could think, as she stared at Raoul's wide, terrified eyes, was 'Who were those two men?'. One was the Phantom, she was sure of it. But was he the one that cut the ropes? Or was he the one that had so desperately clawed at the air in an attempt to grab the ropes, foolishly believing he was able to hold the weight of the chandelier himself.

The one that had been set upon by the other man once the chandelier fell.


	2. Chapter 2

His emergence into consciousness was like bodily crawling through thick sludge, slowly becoming more aware of the pain that had been a dull companion at the edges of his attention, now a sharp spike in his skull, twin fires at his shoulders and arms.

Experience has taught him to push away such things like pain and discomfort, taught him not to show any signs of being awake, sounds, movements, etc... And oh how wonderful a student he was in these lessons.

His arms were strained over his head, his wrists bound together by rope that rubbed his skin raw and bloody from taking the weight of his body as he dangled in the air. His neck would no doubt scream of agony if he tried to lift his head, which he wouldn't be doing for as long as he could put it off.

"I know you're awake," a horribly familiar voice said in Farsi.

That voice, spoken in that language. Straight out of his nightmares. That same voice that's kept him up countless nights, trying to block out that insidious echo with drugs. The Khanum of Persia. The crazed, psychotic woman of the middle east.

He abandoned all pretense of unconsciousness with a tiny sigh, lifted his face up and opened his eyes, ignored the twinge in his neck as it worked to support his much too heavy head. The Khanum was sat in a rickety wooden chair with the same grace as she would her throne, one leg stacked over the other, her hands linked placidly on her lap, the ghost of a smile on her lips as she watched him from a few feet away.

They were alone, Erik quickly ascertained with a dart of his eyes over the barren room. They were holed up in an abandoned house, judging by the thick layers of dust that coated the floor and the empty cobwebs that dotted the corners. Even the insects had scurried away in the presence of this wretched woman.

He craned his neck upwards, saw that his ropes hung from a rafter on the ceiling. The chill of the room bit into the skin of his bare chest and his mask-less face, but Erik was more than used to the cold, and was more than used to having this woman examining his deformity, so that was nothing of importance.

At least she'd allowed him to keep his pants, if not his shoes, which was unusual, considering all she'd done to him in the past.

Small mercies.

"Like old times, isn't it, my lovely?" she asked, the damn endearment's irony certainly not lost on a deformed monster like Erik.

He mustered up a smile - more a sneer than a smile - and responded in Farsi, "Did you receive my resignation letter?" He wiggled his blood-deprived fingers to indicate the bound wrists. "Maybe not."

Erik had forgotten, in the time he'd been away from Persia, just how fast the Khanum could move. And just how hard she could hit too. She sprung up with an agility that would make even a cobra envious, impacted the back of her hand against Erik's cheek hard enough to snap his head to the side, tasting blood instantly. And, oh, how could Erik have forgotten the rings?

The sadistic bi - woman - wore the largest of jewels that her country produced, and the sharp edges of the metal settings lanced three gashes along the side of Erik's unmarred cheek. She wouldn't dare touch his deformity, unwilling to destroy a fine work of art such as that. But his left side, she always had her share of fun with.

"Your tongue has always been loose, magician," she hissed into his face. Her blood-speckled hand gripped his jaw to focus his attention on her again. "I wonder sometimes whether you should still be in possession of it."

A threat Erik had no doubt she'd follow through on. If people had thought the Phantom was psychotic and depraved, they've never met the devil that chased at his heels.

"We have much to discuss, you and I," she said, shook his jaw a bit to get his to swing in the air, the pain in his shoulders increasing to the point where he felt as if they'd pop out of their sockets soon.

She released him to return to her chair, but not before running a hand down his bare chest for good measure. Oh yes, just like old times.

"Buquet sent for you, didn't he?" Erik asked through clenched teeth, biting through the pain.

"As smart as ever, my angel," she said with a pleased smile, and Erik had to fight not to react to the name. Angel of Death. Angel of Music. Two extremes, one just as destructive as the other.

"He told me what you've been doing in Paris," she said, held her hand up to pick at the blood on her rings. "You've been a busy boy."

That bastard! Erik should have gotten rid of him ages ago, but he'd promised Nadir. DAMN THAT PERSIAN AND HIS DAMNABLY HIGH MORALS! Look where it's gotten Erik now! With his life literally hanging in the balance.

"What did he tell you?" Erik spat along with the blood from his cut lip.

She looked up from her nails, a malicious glint in her eyes. "Everything."


	3. Chapter 3

_"Meg, where have you been? I've been calling you and calling you for supper."_

 _Her daughter looked appropriately chastised, head bowed in shame as she stood in the middle of their room, facing her irate mother. "I'm sorry, maman, but I was playing with my friend, and I lost track of time."_

 _"And who is this friend of yours, hm?" Antoinette asked, held out a hand towards her daughter, reeling the girl in so that she could sit her on her lap. At eight years old, the girl was getting too big for such things, but Antoinette would milk the time left for all its worth._

 _She shrugged. "He didn't tell me his name. But he looked so sad and lonely, I felt bad for him. I wanted to cheer him up with Princess Tildy." She held up her doll for her maman to see._

 _Antoinette frowned. "He didn't tell you his name?"_

 _Meg shook her head no, fidgeting with her doll's blonde hair. That's odd. There weren't any new staff members that have been added, Antoinette would know. As the instructor, Monsieur Lefevre would have told her of any new additions._

 _"What did he look like?"_

 _Meg hummed in speculation. "He is tall, about as tall as you, maman. Black hair, eyes that look just like the sun, and he was wearing a mask."_

 _Antoinette's entire world screeched to a halt. An image flashed across her mind of a dirty boy in tattered rags, eyes as gold as twin suns, unkempt raven black hair sticking up in random spikes, a cloth covering the right side of his face._

 _"Maman? What's wrong?" Meg asked, craning her neck backwards to look up at her mother._

 _"N - Nothing, Meg." She swallowed, forced herself to push away the burgeoning hope and ecstatic joy that fueled the voice inside of her going 'could it be him could it be him could it be Erik?'. She kept her voice as steady as possible, so that Meg wouldn't know just how much her description of her new friend had affected her mother. "Where did you see him, Meg? He can join you for supper. He must be lonely, like you said."_

 _Meg hesitated before answering, which meant that she had been doing something she shouldn't have been doing. "I was...in the west side of the building. He was standing in front of a broom closet, just staring at the door. He looked like he was very very sad."_

 _Antoinette forced herself to sigh, scolding her daughter for going to the unused side of the opera house where the wood was much more maggot-ridden and weak, when all Antoinette wanted to do was bolt down to the cellars, go find Erik, see him with her own eyes._

 _"Well, then, you stay here with Princess Tildy, and I'll go find your friend, yes?"_

 _Meg nodded enthusiastically, her chin jerking up and down so quickly Antoinette worried she'd get whiplash. She stood up, placed her daughter onto the bed, told her, "No wandering about, Meg Giry, do you understand me?", and after waiting for her daughter's confirmation nod, went for the door._

 _The moment she closed it behind her, and out of sight of her daughter, she took off at a run - or as much of a run as her weak leg would allow her - towards the dressing room with the hidden tunnel. Thankfully, the dressing room was unoccupied at the moment, and has been for quite some time after a young Erik scared off everybody who tried to use it by making it seem like the room was haunted._

 _Since she'd been back, she'd only come to this room one time. And that was the day she came to ask Monsieur Lefevre for a job. She'd stood in front of the wall just like she was doing now, careful not to get her hopes up too high, calculating the probability that Erik had returned from his travels, decided that he'd given her enough time to think that he was truly gone and had come back to claim his home. But when she'd finally gotten the courage to press the trigger, the wall slid open with a struggling groan to reveal a tunnel filled with spider webs, and Antoinette had known immediately that the lack of cleanliness and upkeeping of this entrance meant Erik was still gone._

 _Unlike that disheartening day, Antoinette had Meg's testimony and not just blind optimism on her side. And when she depressed the trigger, heard the strangled screech of the gears turning, saw the cobwebs that had only increased in quantity and size since that day four years ago, she didn't let it discourage her._

 _She barreled through the cobwebs, sailed through the labyrinth with the same ease as all those years ago when Erik would test her on her memory of the routes, making sure she wouldn't get lost without him there._

 _She didn't think she could miss the sound of lapping water as much as she did then, and the sight of the lake only made her speed up even more. Through the shortcut she went, uncaring of the way the cobwebs stuck to her hair and clothes, Erik would probably pick them out later and save them to scare the ballet rats, and the thought brought a wet laugh out of her, her eyes filling with tears as she thought of the mischievous little imp that would pretend to be a banshee at three in the morning._

 _The door came into sight, and Antoinette fumbled for her keys. In her haste, she jammed it into the lock, unable to perform the trick to getting this handmade key to unlock the door. Despite her hesitance at building up too much hope, she'd failed...miserably._

 _The door came open with a frustrated kick of her foot, and she stumbled in, not even caring that she left the door wide open as she burst into the living area, searching for her old friend._

 _Other than the layers of dust that had accumulated over the interior of the room, nothing seemed out of place. The remnants of Erik's attempt at building an organ was still sitting by the wall. The books, papers, and random items were still strewn over the floor like dusty, decrepit landmines._

 _"Erik!?" she called out, but the only response was a daunting silence._

 _Hell bent on her mission, she quickly made her way towards the other rooms. The first one was empty. The second one..._

 _She threw open the door, but the sight that met her, was not the same child that she remembered. Gone was the dimply faced boy with the unkempt hair, the cloth mask, the gangly, dirt-smudged body thin from malnourishment._

 _In this room, sat against the wall next to the door, one leg pulled up to serve as a rest for his right arm, was a young man with slicked back hair, a white porcelain mask covering the right side of his face, the left side chiseled and tanned from the sun. The same golden eyes slowly roamed up to her at her entrance, but he didn't seem startled, most likely having heard her banging around the house looking for him._

 _Before she even realized she'd moved, she was across the few steps that separated them, her cane clattered uselessly to the ground, and she dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around his neck._

 _He flinched violently away from her, hard enough where Antoinette pulled back, frightened she'd hurt him or scared him. He never did like sudden movements._

 _"Erik?" On her knees, she reached out a wary hand to his shoulder. He shrunk away from her, his eyes avoiding anywhere that came close to where she kneeled on the floor by his side. She studied him for any sign that he recognized her, that he felt the same relief at seeing her as she did seeing him._

 _But with every second that passed, the happiness started to fade away, concern and a large dose of fear washing over the elation and joy that had sent her running down here. She'd prayed for this very moment for many years, and finally it's come. Never once did she ever picture him shying away from her, unwilling to accept her touch. Not even when she'd rescued him from the gypsies did he react in such a way towards her._

 _He planted one hand against the floor, one against the wall, and with more effort than it should have taken, heaved himself into a stand. From her position, looking up at him, she saw the way the muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched repeatedly, his eyes and face dark with a distant sorrow that had been enough for even an eight year old to see._

 _ **"He didn't tell me his name. But he looked so sad and lonely, I felt bad for him. I wanted to cheer him up with Princess Tildy."**_

 _He turned away from her, physically turning his back on his friend, the square set of his shoulders strong and sturdy underneath his white shirt, the obvious musculature that had appeared in the years since he's been away, the long, lean length of a runner's body in those black trousers._

 _Was he mad at her? Was he mad that she'd been prepared to abandon him to marry Jean? Why was he so cold, so distant?_

 _"You should leave, Antoinette," he said, the dull rumble of his voice like distant thunder, so different from the tinkling bells of his childhood._

 _She scrambled upright, unbelieving of what she'd just heard. Surely, she'd been mistaken. "Er - "_

 _"Leave!" he barked, and for the first time since she met the boy, Antoinette felt fear cruising down her spine. Like a prey sensing a predator nearby, her mind told her to run run run!_

 _But she forced that instinct down, the fright and confusion. She didn't know what happened in those eight years he was gone, what he'd been through to bring such a shadow into those golden eyes, but what she did know, was that he was hurting right now. There was such a deep well of anguish in his words, a sense of heartbreak that reminded her very much of the first couple years after the accident and Jean's death._

 _She pushed on, took a step closer and dared to raise a hand, slow and tentative, she touched her fingers to his shoulder._

 _He flinched, but not as violently as before, and he didn't yell for her to back off, so she considered that to be a good sign. She attributed him to a wounded and frightened animal, and like one, she approached him, circling around his tense body until she could look him in the face._

 _Meg was right. Erik was around the same height as her, but at only seventeen, she knew he would keep growing, and she idly wondered how long it would take before she had to look up at him just to meet his gaze._

 _"Erik," she murmured quietly, voice breaking as she saw how defeated he looked, the way his eyes were clenched shut, shaking with a devastation that would surely overwhelm him should she continue. She didn't know what would happen if she kept prodding him to open up to her, but whatever it was, it was better than him sending her away. "Please tell me what's wrong."_

 _When that didn't illicit a response, she tried again. "Where have you been, Erik?"_

 _Erik inhaled a shaky breath, trembling like a leaf in a windstorm, and then gritted out, "Hell on Earth."_

 _She swallowed down the guilt crushing her heart, edged towards him, and searching for any discomfort, she threaded her arms around his neck, tilted his unmasked cheek onto her shoulder, and simply held onto the poor boy._

 _For a moment, he was stock still, a flesh and blood statue in her arms, as if unwilling to accept this comfort._

 _And then..._

 _His arms circled around her abruptly as if he'd suddenly snapped out of his absent and cold daze, crushing her against him as hot tears ran down his face, soaking into her black dress. This was the first and last time she'd ever witness him cry, and the moment was engraved into her mind as she felt her heart breaking with each despairing whimper, each devastated sob that tore itself out of his throat._

 _She didn't know what he's gone through, but she did know one thing: she wouldn't ever abandon him again. Never again._

The caverns were icy cold, and how the blasted boy could survive in such frigid temperatures, Antoinette didn't know. And usually, she'd be hissing about the chill, clutching a shawl tightly to her body. But right now, she was so furious, she was amazed the icicles hanging from the tunnels' roof hadn't melted.

"Erik!" she shouted, the echoes of the name surging forwards as if reeled back in by its owner. "ERIK, I KNOW YOU KNOW I'M HERE! COME MEET ME AT ONCE!"

She bypassed the route to the lake, braving the various traps that the boy put up in defense of his precious home.

"ERIK!" she shouted, ducked under a piano wire placed strategically at the height of an adult's neck. "YOU'VE GONE MUCH TOO FAR THIS TIME! COME OUT RIGHT NOW!"

Usually, she'd have been met with Erik's wrath for her gall. His temper always has been a thing to behold, just as terrifying as a lion's roar, but more often than not, as physically violent as an irate cat.

She arrived at his door, untouched by the old traps, much too incensed to be grateful he hadn't placed any new ones in without telling her. People have died because of Erik. Not one, but dozens! Whole families, ripped apart by his actions stemming from his damned jealousy!

Oh, Christine had told her everything. Told her and Meg everything from how her angel had brought her down to his home after Hannibal, up until the proposal on the roof. And while Antoinette knew Erik was an honorable man with no intentions in doing anything unseemly, the thought that this innocent girl had been in the lion's den alone, it sent shivers down her spine.

She was not naive, not a woman foreign to the world of violence. She knew Erik was a killer, has seen him do it in her honor before. Hell, the first time she'd met the boy, the occasion had been aptly bathed with blood. She knew the things that Erik was capable of, and to compound it with heightened emotions and a loss of self-control...

Well...

The results of such a moment were currently laid underneath dozens and dozens of blood-drenched sheets in the lobby of the Opera Populaire. She could excuse him for his actions as the Phantom, has even aided him in the years past, but this...this, she cannot excuse, she cannot forgive.

She banged on the heavy door with the side of her fist, calling through the material, "YOU OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT THIS MINUTE, ERIK! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE!? DO YOU HAVE _ANY IDEA_ WHAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE WROUGHT!?"

In her blind fury, she fumbled at the lock with her set of keys. "YOU FOOLISH, STUPID BOY! YOU - ARGH!" She growled like a madwoman when the key refused to budge, frustration building to the point where she shirked her proper upbringing, and kicked the door with the side of her foot. As if on cue, the lock shifted free, the entrance was pushed open, and she stumbled forwards along with its momentum, startled at the abrupt give.

She wasted no time in storming the living area, through the different rooms, shouting as she went, "SHOW YOURSELF, ERIK! OR ARE YOU A COWARD, HIDING AWAY LIKE A PETULANT CHILD!?"

When even that challenge failed to send him running from his hiding spot, she knew for certain that he wasn't there. The home in the bowels of the opera house was empty of its lord and master. So she searched for a paper and pen, scribbled out furious lines of accusations and curses, and ended it off with:

 _I am done with you, Erik Destler. I wash my hands of you, and absolve myself of any and all actions that your insanity will no doubt think up in the future. Goodbye._

She slapped the note onto the keys of Erik's organ, the sound of the random notes creating a jarring and ominous groan, and then threw Erik's key violently on top of it, the metal ricocheting off of the ivory and landed on the floor behind her as she stormed out of the house, never once looking back.


	4. Chapter 4

Hello, my dear readers! Thanks so much for your support. I'd lost a lot of steam on this project, but with such wonderful reviewers (and for the Guests, I hope you set up an account in the future so I can thank you properly), I had to jump back onto that POTO train again.

Now, here's the next chapter. But just be warned. This story does get dark in some places, because I myself am a bit twisted myself (teehee). I will definitely try to keep things as non-graphic as possible, but still….enter at your own risk, readers.

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"Your little singer is quite the lovely dove," the Khanum noted with a sly grin. She sighed deeply, tilted her head back, baring the soft slope of her neck to his eyes, the chair creaking beneath her weight. "Such a shame it would be if her beautiful skin were to - "

"DON'T YOU DARE GET NEAR HER!" Erik snarled.

The woman practically cackled at the threat, stood up and sauntered over to him. Calm and deliberate, to unsettle him. "You would still protect her? After _all_ she's done to you."

The Khanum's face was mere inches from Erik's, pressed up as she was to him, her hands roaming the length of his body. So close, he could see the dilation in her pupils as she asked, "What would you do to me if I touched her, hm? Would you truss me up like you are, currently? Strip me of my clothes. My _skin_ , if you so wanted."

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, then licked across her upper lip. "Would you taste my blood like the finest of wines, my sweet? I wonder what I would taste of upon your enhanced palate. Cherries? Plums? Or, perhaps, something much more fitting?...like _apples._ "

He felt, more than saw, her shiver from delight. Not terror, never not - the disgusting witch. Erik grit his teeth, refusing to play her twisted games.

Even with his refusal to participate, she was encouraged furthermore, no doubt remembering the countless of brutal executions he'd performed for her like a show all those years ago when he was still her blood-thirsty puppet.

Her breasts heaved as her breaths deepened, tipping forwards to press a kiss to his lips. Her taste was sickeningly sweet, a mixture of grapes and sugar and the iron tang of blood. When he did not respond, she dug her nails into the skin of his back, and dragged them down, clawing five deep trenches into his flesh, drawing blood.

Still, he refused.

She pulled away with a low growl. But from one second to the next, Erik watched the anger slip away from her face like water off a duck's back, replaced with fond amusement, as if he was a pet and had done something utterly adorable.

Her mood swings always were unpredictable.

She sighed lightly, her blood-speckled hands coming back around to rest on his chest, her head tilted at him with a pleasant smile.

If Erik hadn't known what dark heart rested in that full-bosomed chest of the Khanum's, he would have been fooled by her appearance.

Before him, was an ethereal beauty, with the most luscious and smooth caramel skin, hair as dark as the night he loved so much, sharp green eyes that he's stared into far too often to count out the flecks of brown that dotted them.

Age suited certain women well, but for the Khanum, it seemed as if time and age has bowed to her aesthetic vanity. Perhaps it's from the virgins' blood that she bathed in every night, the sadistic bi -

"I treated you well, magician, and you betrayed me." Her grin widened, amused and sharp, her gaze turning considerate as it roamed over his face. "Not very grateful, are we?"

"Grateful? Your son tried to kill me," Erik threw back at her.

"Be that as it may..." she hummed in reply. She looked down to trace the path her hands made as they smoothed over the skin of his stomach, and then, "It seems quite fitting that your comeuppance would be for your beloved to betray _you_."

He strove not to speak, forced the anger away at the thought of that fop and Christine, and dug deep to find the resignation he'd achieved when he'd accepted Christine's decision.

"I wonder what she would say," the woman said with a happy click of her tongue. "if she knew all the things that you've done as the Angel Of Death. All the blood on your hands. Why, she's already in a catatonic state after what happened with the chandelier, the pathetic little teacup."

"That was not by my hand, and you know it," Erik snarled in her face. "I did not murder those people! Your assassin did. And, by proxy, _you_ did!"

"Semantics," she dismissed with a wave of her hand, turning away from him to roam the empty room.

Erik huffed, latched his ire back into its cage, willed his control back because he most certainly needed all he could afford when dealing with the Khanum.

"Clever of you to send a blind assassin," he said. "Fight those who dwell in the darkness with one who was born in it."

"If you had been a good little boy like you used to be, I wouldn't have needed to send him," she wagged a finger at him in reprimand, tutting at him lightly like a disappointed parent. "And those poor little ants wouldn't have been crushed under the weight of that light fixture, now would they? But, as always I tell Samir, mistakes must be made if lessons are to be learned."

Samir, her son, who certainly didn't fall far from her psychotic tree.

"Maybe next time I tell you to do something, little Erik, you won't be so quick to disobey," she grinned wickedly, coming to pause at the only entrance and exit of this small room. She rapped on the door in a sequence that Erik was sure would lose effect the moment she left. There was the sound of scraping metal on the other side of the barrier, chains unlocking.

It seems as if they'd barred and sealed him in this room with armed guards outside.

Erik should have known. The Khanum's never been foolish enough to underestimate the genius magician's ability to disappear when left alone.

Before she left, she pursed her lips and blew him a kiss. "Do sleep well, my lovely. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, after all."

The moment the door clanged shut, his ropes lost tension, and Erik was dropped to the floor with the same care one would give a sack of potatoes. The first thing he did once he pushed himself upright, was to dislocate his left thumb to snake his hand out of the tight bonds.

His hands were drenched with red by the time he was free, scraped raw by the ropes, and from experience, he knew that the pain he could already feel burning its way through the muscles of his arms and shoulders and back from being held in position for so long, would only worsen as blood flow returned to those areas.

He settled himself into a reasonably comfortable-looking nook in a corner, pressed his thumb back into its socket with a stifled groan, and resigned himself to the agony sure to come - both from his body, and from the sadistic woman with death trailing in her wake.

Sleep would not be a privilege gifted to him tonight, Erik knew, and so he let out a shaky breath, closed his eyes, and struggled to formulate a plan with the few options afforded to him.

xxxxxxxx

The teacup shattered as it impacted with the floor, hot tea spilling over the kitchen's tile, but Nadir was too appalled to notice or care, even as Darius came running.

He ignored the younger man's good-natured tutting as Darius set about cleaning the mess, Nadir's attention focused solely on the front page of the morning's Epoque.

 _Freak Accident At Opera Populaire! 26 dead, 45 wounded._

Freak accident, they say. Nadir sincerely doubted that.

Simple _accidents_ like these didn't just occur when in relation to anything within a one mile radius of the Phantom. This is most definitely Erik's doing.

Nadir slammed the paper down, shot to his feet and grabbed his coat and hat. So upset was he, he missed Darius' alarmed questions.

A maelstrom of anger and disappointment and _why why WHY_ swirled around Nadir like a veil, and from the moment he left his house to the moment he stopped at the Rue Scribe entrance, he had no memory of the trek there. Twas a miracle he hadn't been hit by a buggy along the way.

Feeling foolish indeed for being so blinded by his ire, Nadir took a moment to stop and simply _breathe -_ before he does something he'll truly regret.

Once he could think without the urge to throttle a certain Phantom, Nadir allowed himself entry to the underground home. The door opens to the labyrinth of pitch-black tunnels that snaked down from the Opera House to Erik's home, and it was only from years of traversing these tunnels, and the aid of a small hand-held lantern, that he was able to successfully navigate his way around the traps and large lake to the main door of the Phantom's lair.

Just beyond this wooden divider, Nadir thought darkly, lay a murderer born anew. The Persian took a moment here as well, to calm himself.

When dealing with Erik, he's found, fighting fire with fire was, more often than not, only going to result in a towering inferno. It's Nadir's place in this odd dynamic as guardian to his resistant ward, to be the immovable rock to Erik's oncoming storm.

To be the anchor to the troubled young man's wayward soul.

With this thought in mind (and a prayer to Allah for strength), Nadir let himself in. It was dark inside, no hint of light save the warm glow of his lantern.

He wasn't sure exactly what he'd find - perhaps a masked madman, rampaging and destroying everything in sight for reasons currently unknown to Nadir.

Whatever he'd expected, it most certainly wasn't this.

 _Nothing._

Nothing seemed out of place. The living area that the door led to, was tranquil. Everything was orderly, the candle wax solidified - they haven't been used in a while, it seemed. But darkness has never bothered the Phantom, and therefore, unused candles held no real import as to the man's presence.

"Erik!" Nadir barked into the silence as he quickly examined the rest of the rooms.

They were all, like the living area, untouched. Tidy.

Erik's tantrums would not allowed everything to stay so neat, Nadir knew from being a friend for so many years. Having been chief of police for just as long (judging by the absence of meal discards in the kitchen's rubbish bin), Nadir could tell that Erik has not been here since the night of the chandelier.

Crossing to the organ, Nadir was not surprised to find a light coating of dust upon the beloved instrument. If Erik had been here, he would have never allowed such a travesty to happen.

What he was surprised to find, however, was a lone note sitting atop the keys. Nadir picked it up, and recognized Antoinette's handwriting immediately, even if it was a careless scrawl. It seems as if the writer had been in a hurry to leave - or, more realistically, was so angered that she couldn't even write properly. There were multiple puncture marks where she'd pressed the tip in too violently.

Oh and the cursing was definitely a dead giveaway.

The note wasn't overly long, but not short either, expressing Antoinette's thoughts on Erik's inability to think with his mind instead of his heart. Detailing the things she would do to him if he ever showed his face anywhere near her again, and ended it all off with a simple - _I am done with you, Erik Destler. I wash my hands of you, and absolve myself of any and all actions that your insanity will no doubt think up in the future. Goodbye._

Nadir sighed as he stared down at the destruction of one of Erik's oldest friendships, his righteous fury ebbing away in the face of such a disheartening turn of events. Now...he just felt tired.

In Nadir's hand, held the culmination of decades of frustration and hope, friendship and betrayal, tears and laughter.

He couldn't blame Antoinette for her rage. For abandoning Erik at a time when he needed them the most.

Whilst she has never learned of Erik's time in Persia, it was nevertheless Antoinette that witnessed the change in the boy the most. It was she that worked tirelessly to bring him out of his self-imposed shell; dragging him away from the proverbial grave that bore Reza's name kicking and screaming back into the land of the living, while Nadir wallowed in his grief in the company and consolation of Darius.

And despite the many years being by Erik's side, Antoinette has never once been exposed to the dark corners of the Phantom's psyche. She's never known of Erik's easy willingness to actually follow through with even his most violent threats.

And as Nadir thought back to the mountains of bodies stacked at Erik's feet before they escaped Persia - before the _promise_ \- dropping a chandelier on twenty six people was considered relatively tame by the Angel of Death's standards.

But now, the veil's been lifted. And for the very first time, Antoinette looked at that scarred, deformed boy...and saw a monster.

Heart heavy, Nadir replaced the note to its original spot. A metallic glint reflected in the light of his lantern, and Nadir looked down to see the key that Antoinette had thrown with bitter ferocity. Nadir placed it on top of the parchment, and searched for paper for himself.

He found a piece of discarded sheet music crumpled in the rubbish bin. Tearing off an empty corner, Nadir scratched out a short missive of his own.

 _I'm very disappointed in you, Erik._

He laid it down next to Antoinette's note, and stared down at the twin papers. He ran his finger along the metal of his key to Erik's home in his pocket, torn between two decisions.

He held up his key, and considered following the same route that Antoinette had taken.

He could do it, the logical part of Nadir's mind whispered to him. He could end it all, right here right now. Burn the bridge that's been so painstakingly built, held up by Nadir through sheer strength of will for all these years.

The moment came...and Nadir let it pass.

The image - memory - of Erik's eyes as he staggered out of Reza's room, the empty vial clutched tightly in a white-knuckle grip, was enough for Nadir to know that he could _never_ leave that boy. Nadir would now have to be the one to drag Erik away from the darkness and back into the light kicking and screaming, if it's the last thing he did.

He left, pocketing Erik's key, intent on finding the fearsome ballet instructor to figure out just what in Allah's name had happened to set the boy off so horrendously.


End file.
